Instagram is a visual platform that began as a medium for sharing images with an audience. It then slowly progressed into a medium of advertisement for companies in order for them to showcase their brand and demonstrate who and what their products were all about. Instagram was used to boost a company’s visual brand by making them more relatable. You can read all about this from my infographic here.
Instagram does not allow clickable links in the caption of an image, which is bringing them to a loss. The only link that can be included is within the bio of the main profile which increases the amount of clicks that a customer must go through in order to make a purchase from a brand. During the current digital age, the internet is all about making things simpler and more efficient. The more clicks that a customer must go through, the more likely they are to abandon the purchase.
However Instagram have announced the integration of some new tools which can help to drive and generate more revenue for brands. Since being bought by Facebook, the incorporation of ads was inevitable and with more than 200 million worldwide users, there is now ample opportunity to advertise and utilise this platform.
What are the new features?
The new tools are a basic combination of Google Adwords and Analytics and will work in a very similar method. There will be 3 main features which are as follows:
Account insights: a business will be able to view impressions, reach and engagement and the way in which it can contribute to increasing brand awareness.
Ad insights: demonstrates performance of paid campaigns through brand analytics.
Ad staging: makes it possible for a team to collaborate on an upcoming campaign by simultaneously allowing them to work on and present the content to the remainder of the team.
What does this mean for your brand?
Your brands will be able to view audience engagement, impressions and also set up paid ad campaigns. This will aid you in identifying the best performing content, and there will also be a ‘real time’ function which will enable you to view activity as it occurs. These tools will make it possible to decipher whether organic and sponsored posts are reaching impressions and to identify the best times of the day to be posting content, to ensure maximum interaction. By using paid ad campaigns, your brand can use targeted marketing and get the most out of this visual platform.
The only thing left to do is for Instagram to finally allow clickable links within the captions and comments of images, and they will fully be utilising this avenue of sales.
